2016 Nissan Titan XD

A five-eighth-ton truck.

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Surprisingly, the Nissan Titan has been in constant production since the 2004 model year. It’s the pickup market’s back marker; the 12,527 Titans sold in 2014 about equals how many F-series Ford produces every five days. No one thinks about it, no one talks about it, and few outside of its Canton, Mississippi, assembly plant would have missed the Titan if Nissan had humanely euthanized it.

But it lives. After nearly becoming a rebadged Ram in a Nissan-Chrysler joint venture that fell apart in 2009, a new, 2016 Titan is here to pursue the big-truck zeitgeist. Actually, it’s sort of two trucks. First, there’s the regular Titan that, to oversimplify the matter somewhat, is the new Titan body atop the old Titan frame. Then there’s this, the Titan XD, which has mostly new bits underneath and its own beefier ladder frame. According to Nissan, the XD slyly slots between half- and three-quarter-ton pickups.

“We’ve been able, with the Titan XD, to position the spring rates lower than what a three-quarter-ton truck would be,” explains Nissan’s Titan product planning titan, Richard Miller. “We’ve been able to offer a softer, more compliant ride while still offering 12,000 pounds of towing or more. And because of the softer springs, we’ve used hydraulic cab mounts, which take out what we call ‘smooth road shake.’ Much better than rubber cab mounts.”

So, call it a five-eighth-ton truck. But it’s otherwise familiar. It has a control-arm front suspension with coil springs, the tail rides atop leaf springs, and the steering is recirculating-ball. Conventional stuff.

Eventually available in three cab configurations and two wheelbases, the Titan XD will initially be sold as a gargantuan Crew Cab with a long bed stretching 242.8 inches over a 151.6-inch wheelbase. That’s a 5.2-inch-shorter wheelbase than the longest Ford F-150 SuperCrew, though the Nissan’s longer overhangs mean that its overall length is only 0.9 inch less. And like other big pickups, the Titan XD emphasizes its massiveness with a nose so tall that grown-ups must stand on tippy toes to peer over the fenders into the engine bay.

In there, Nissan beckons Cummins cultists with an engine not offered in any Ram: a new 5.0-liter, turbo-diesel V-8. The new V-8 rates at 310 horsepower and 555 lb-ft of peak torque at 1600 rpm. That’s between the Ram 1500’s VM Motori–made 3.0-liter EcoDiesel turbo V-6, at 240 horsepower and 420 lb-ft, and the Ram 2500’s 6.7-liter Cummins turbo-diesel six at 350 horsepower and 660 lb-ft. And Nissan’s diesel produces much less power than the big turbo-diesel V-8s in the heavy-duty trucks from Ford and General Motors, which produce 440 horsepower and 860 lb-ft and 397 horsepower and 765 lb-ft, respectively. Nissan will eventually offer an updated version of the old 5.6-liter gas-burning V-8 in the new XD. The preproduction 4x4 test truck lacked running boards, but was otherwise resplendent in Platinum Reserve trim. Nissan coyly says Titan XD diesel pricing will start around $40,000 and top out around $60,000. Naturally the Titan XD Platinum Reserve includes every tech toy and is decked out in more wood and leather than a Ruth’s Chris Steak House booth. The seats are comfortable with excellent back support, the controls mostly logical, and thick insulation means the idling Cummins is barely heard.

Riding on 20-inch wheels and 265-section General Grabber HTS tires, the Titan XD’s steering is slow, while the ride is cushy. The Aisin six-speed automatic’s shifts were gentle and confident, even while towing my own 2000 Toyota Tundra on a trailer behind it. And the XD is utterly stable. Considering its heft, it ought to be.

The unladen Titan XD needed 9.2 seconds to reach 60 mph and 17.0 seconds to complete the quarter-mile while moseying at 82 mph. That’s a little behind the crew cab Ram EcoDiesel, which hit 60 mph in 9.0 seconds flat and ran the quarter-mile in 16.9 seconds. But that 5688-pound Ram seems feathery compared with the stupendously heavy, 7360-pound Titan XD. That’s three and a half tons plus three jockeys.

Mass limits the Titan XD to a 0.74-g skidpad orbit while the 70-to-zero braking distance was a mediocre 192 feet. Over 566 miles, the XD returned 15 mpg.

Nissan has added some sweet cargo-handling features to the Titan XD’s bed, with adjustable rail cleats for tie downs and low-mounted LED lighting. Nice, but hardly paradigm-shattering.

Is there a place in the market for a diesel-powered, full-size pickup with less performance than heavy-duty competitors offer but with a nearly heavy-duty amount of heft? Nissan is about to find out. Of course, Nissan has virtually nothing to lose with this truck, either.

An earlier version of the story erroneously underreported our observed fuel mileage. It is now accurate.